Beyond the Reef (POTC 3)

Chapter 2: At World's End

Darkness fell and the waters were very calm. There was not a cloud in the sky, so you could see all the glistening stars that reflected onto the ocean. The soft sounds of the water were relaxing and rare.

I awkwardly stood beside Barbossa, as he twitched the wheel to where we needed to go. There was a silence between us because neither of us wanted to speak. I had not spoken to him much since I assisted in his murder last year. I had been trying to avoid him on the ship as much as possible.

Barbossa's eyes kept darting back and forth from me to the waters in front of us. He finally rolled his eyes and grunted, "why must you be staring at me, lass?"

"I—I'm not." I held my wrist in front of myself, and I felt my black stay tighten slightly.

"Are too."

I stood up a little straighter. "Am not."

"What be the matter, eh? You have never died before?"

"Well.. no."

"Sometimes you die, and you come back to life. Read a book."

I let my breath relax, and we stood in silence, with the only noise being the peaceful waves gently rocking the ship.

"Mon ami," I finally said, offering my hand, "no hard feelings?"

He rolled his eyes and snarled, "you're just like Jack."

Will came running up to us with Elizabeth and I put my hand down glumly.

"Barbossa, up ahead!" Will shouted, breaking the relaxing tone of our discussion.

"Aye," he nodded, "we're good and lost now."

"Lost?" Elizabeth asked, incensed at the information.  The tension of danger was illuminating the once calm night. My heart was pulsing in my chest, unsure of what is going to happen.

"For certain you have to be lost to find a place as can't be found. Elseways, everyone would know where it is," Barbossa explained inanely.

"He has a point," I said as I scratched under my nose. I must be spending too much time with Jack, because that irrational sentence made sense to me. I was not quite sure what they were talking about, but they seemed gravely concerned.

Gibbs looked over the edge and reported back to us, "we're gaining speed."

"Aye," Barbossa said.

"To stations!" Will called out, running down to the deck. "All hands to stations!"

The crew dropped their dinners and ran to their stations. I knitted my eyebrows together in confusion. I couldn't see what everyone was talking about. Why was everyone freaking out besides Barbossa?

"What are they talking about?" I asked Barbossa, but he didn't answer me. "Where are we?"

"The Farthest Gate," he finally answered.

"Rudder full. Hard aport! Gather way," Will yelled.

"Nay!" Barbossa shouted. Spit flew out of his rotten mouth. "Belay that! Let her run straight and true!"

I finally looked over the edge of the ship to see where we were headed. First, I could hear the sounds of rushing water get closer and closer. When my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see up ahead was a giant waterfall, falling to the end of the world.

"Mon dieu," I said in shock. My eyes widened as I tried to wrap my head around the fact that we were headed straight for one of the biggest waterfalls I've ever seen. My anxiety had come to life: we were going to die.

Elizabeth shouted, "you've doomed us all!"

"Batten down the hatches!" I shouted at everyone. Then I turned to Barbossa and said, "I thought the purpose of obtaining this map was not to die!"

"Don't be so unkind." Barbossa staggered up to the front of the ship. "You may not all survive to pass this way again, and these be the last friendly words you'll hear." He grabbed Elizabeth's chin with his dirty hands.

Tia was muttering into her hands during the chaos, I understood it as French. She said something along the lines of, "fish the criminal out of his tomb, the walkway melts in the water", before throwing the crab claws like dice. I still did not exactly understand how her voodoo worked. I helped Will try to steer the boat, but we were too close to the falls. The wheel was fighting against us, and I kept losing my footing.

"Are we about to go over the waterfall?" I asked Will over the terrified shouts of our crew.

He glanced over the edge and he said, "yes."

I took some deep breathes as we continued to hold the wheel with all our strength and I asked, "sharp rocks at the bottom?"

"Most likely."

I hesitated for just a moment before I said confidently, "bring it on."

Will looked at me and asked, "are you sure?"

I nodded with great certainty. There was nothing we could do to stop us from going over the waterfall, so we might as well embrace the angle that Barbossa so confidently put us in.

"Hold on!" Will yelled out to the crew. We both let go of the wheel and let it spin out of control.

As the water gushed the boat closer to the edge with no bottom in sight, everyone started to scream as the ship tilted and I could hear Barbossa laughing manically. He has already died once, he isn't afraid to die again.

Everyone began hanging onto ropes to stay on board. Everyone was grabbing onto each other, and dodging barrels and other debris that toppled over and the ship began to fall. Will hooked his arm around the wheel and I grabbed onto him, burying my face into his coat in an attempt to survive this impending doom. I felt Will wrap his other arm around me, tucking his head by mine. The ship fell backward, flipping over and down the endless waterfall.

Strike your colors, you blooming cockroaches
...
Dead men tell no tales

AN: if you wrote a message in a bottle and tossed it into the ocean for it to wash up on shore, what would you write?
It sounds more like a "I am about to be lost at sea so here is my last love letter to my lover" kind of situation, so I would probably do something like that 😂